CCRI is the largest specialist rural research centre in the UK, having expertise in all aspects of research in policy and planning for the countryside and the environment of the UK, Europe and further afield.

Forest and tree health under scrutiny in new book co-edited by Julie Urquhart

Launched today! New book on forest and tree health co-edited by CCRI’s Julie Urquhart

Across the globe, tree species are facing growing threats from an increasing number of invasive pests and pathogens, causing devastation to some species. The growth in global trade and transportation in recent decades, along with climate change, is allowing invasive pests and pathogens to establish in new environments, with profound consequences for the ecosystem services provided by trees and forests, and impacts on human wellbeing.

Julie Urquhart has co-edited a new book, officially launched today at the 24th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management (ISSRM) in Utah, which offers the first book length synthesis of social science approaches to tree health.

The book, which she co-edited with Mariella Marzano and Clive Potter is called ‘The Human Dimensions of Forest and Tree Health: Global Perspectives’. It demonstrates the qualitative and quantitative approaches used in describing the human dimensions of forest and tree health and argues for greater collaboration and funding for inter-country research projects in order to conduct comparative studies that facilitate knowledge exchange.

The central theme of the book is to consider the role that social science can play in better understanding the social, economic and environmental impacts of such tree disease and pest outbreaks. Contributions include explorations of how pest outbreaks are socially constructed, drawing on the historical, cultural, social and situated contexts of outbreaks; the governance and economics of tree health for informing policy and decision-making; stakeholder engagement and communication tools; along with more philosophical approaches that draw on environmental ethics to consider ‘non-human’ perspectives.

Taken together, the book makes theoretical, methodological and applied contributions to our understanding of this important subject area and encourages researchers from across the social sciences and humanities to bring their own disciplinary perspectives and expertise to address the complexity that is the human dimensions of forest and tree health.